Today In Wrestling History 7/14: Hulk Hogan Testifies At McMahon Trial, Black Saturday, Infamous PPV

* 31 years ago in 1984, one of the most famous individual episodes of a wrestling TV show aired, as the WWF took over Georgia Championship Wrestling's famous 6:05 p.m. Saturday evening time slot. It was dubbed "Black Saturday."

Vince McMahon was rapidly taking the WWF national and expanding into Canada. A few months earlier in April, a chance phone call with Jack Brisco, who had points in the Georgia office, led to a meeting that also included Jack's brother Jerry. Quickly, they gathered enough stockholders to sell a majority of the company to McMahon. When Ole Anderson, the booker and general manager (also a 10% shareholder) found out, he blocked the deal in court for a few months, but when McMahon prevailed, he got control of the Saturday and Sunday evening shows on Superstation WTBS, giving him a cable exclusivity for pro wrestling.

Fans who tuned in at 6:05 for World Championship Wrestling on TBS saw the usual opening montage, but Gordon Solie, who had hosted for over a decade, was nowhere to be found. Secondary announcer Freddie Miller was there in front of the World Championship Wrestling banner instead, and he introduced Vince McMahon. Vince took over as host and explained that we'd be seeing the finest in World Wrestling Federation action. Fans revolting, calling TBS and saying they wanted their "Gordon Solie wrestling" back. Ratings went down and Ole quickly got a Saturday morning show for his new Georgia promotion.

It was never going to last, because Ted Turner wanted a studio wrestling show and Vince felt doing the wraparounds for a recap show at TbS's studio satisfied the contractual requirement for a show shot at the Atlanta studio. Vince caved in March of 1985 to promote WrestleMania before selling the rights to the contract to Jim Crockett at the end of the month.

* 24 years ago in 1991, WCW held one of the most infamous PPVs in wrestling history, that year's Great American Bash live from the Baltimore Arena in Baltimore, Maryland. First and foremost, there was the Ric Flair problem.

As mentioned a couple weeks ago, Flair had been fired after a contract dispute...while he was WCW Champion. He never lost the title, and the main event of this PPV was Lex Luger vs. Barry Windham in a cage match (solely because the original Flair-Luger match was one) to crown a new champion. They did an awkward double turn, Luger won the title (represented by a belt they had laying around since Flair had the real one) in a flat match, and then he left with Harley Race and Mr. Hughes. As all of this went on, the arena was filled with thunderous "WE WANT FLAIR!" chants, which was the story of the whole show.

The title match didn't close the show. Rick Steiner and Missy Hyatt vs. Arn Anderson and Paul E. Dangerously in another cage match was supposed to. Nobody realized until it was too late that the Maryland State Athletic Commission banned men from wrestling against women, so they bait and switched the fans by having Dick Murdoch and Dick Slater kidnap Hyatt before the match. We want Flair.

The rest of the show was largely a mess. The first ever Ricky Morton vs. Robert Gibson singles match ages well, but that's about it. The one match that sums up the whole card more than any other is the opener: Bobby Eaton and P.N. News defeated Steve Austin and Terrance Taylor in a scaffold match. A scaffold match, for those who don't know, was wrestled on a scaffold above the ring, and you win when your opponents fall into the ring. Here, there was no feud, plus guys with bad knees and 400+ pound P.N. News. So they changed it to a capture the flag rules match without telling the announcers or fans. We want Flair.

* 21 years ago in 1994, the steroid distribution trial of Vince McMahon continued in Uniondale, New York. This was the day that got the most publicity of the whole trial, including the verdict, thanks to Hulk Hogan testifying.

** Detective Gregory S. Taylor from the Lower Paxton Police Dept in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania. He established that a steroid vial that McMahon's former assistant had in her possession was from the same batch as those that an informant had bought from former Pennsylvania State Athletic Commission doctor George Zahorian had sold to an informant.

** Terry "Hulk Hogan" Bollea was next. He started using steroids in 1976, and he saw them used openly in the locker room during his big WWF run that started at the end of 1983. He supported most of the previous testimony about Zahorian, that he'd just take your pulse and blood pressure then sell you whatever you wanted. He talked about splitting steroids with Vince, sometimes paying for his half depending on the circumstances.

On cross-examination, only Laura Brevetti cross-examined Hogan since Jerry McDevitt has represented him in the past. Hogan preferred to get steroids from doctors out of concern for getting fakes, and McMahon never ordered him to take steroids. There was an odd exchange where Brevetti asked "You have no recollection of conversations on steroids with McMahon or Zahorian in a room?" and Hogan replied "No, not in a room." Hogan never experienced roid rage and never saw McMahon experience a roid rage. The term "larger than life" was code for larger than normal muscles. Splitting steroids with McMahon or other friends was compared to getting cigarettes from a friend.

As a layman, he always thought using steroids from a doctor was legal. He admitted to lying about his history with steroids on The Arsenio Hall Show in 1991. McMahon felt he shouldn't have even gone on the show in the first place because he felt that it (a late-night talk show) was the wrong environment for the subject matter. He said his new job with WCW had nothing to do with the trial publicity and that he and McMahon were still friends.

On re-direct, Hogan said that he knew Vince McMahon and Emily Feinberg weren't doctors when he'd get steroids from them at the office. He admitted his size was part of his appeal, and that Zahorian gave him a prescription pad as cover for while he was on the road in case he was caught with anything. "If they found steroids, there would be a piece of paper with my name on it. It said, 'Deca for Terry Bollea for bodybuilding.'" On re-cross, Hogan said he was not on steroids and was still talking about his "pythons" in promoting his match with Ric Flair at Bash at the Beach. And that was that.

** Robert Gorse, the office manager for Rugby Darby Pharmaceuticals, where Zahorian ordered everything from, was next. Zahorian ordered $2,403 worth of drugs in 1988, $10,132 in 1989, $940 in 1990 (after he stopped working WWF shows, and he didn't order anything after April). The defense tried to shift blame to the pharmacy for not noticing that kind of change in steroid purchase activity, but the judge didn't let it go specially far.

** John "'Big' John Studd" Minton was next via telephone. He was too sick to travel due to Hodgkin's Lymphoma, though the jury wasn't told why he wasn't there. He didn't see what Zahorian did as a crime and said Zahorian did tell wrestlers about the dangers of steroid abuse. The prosecutor also read this part of Studd's grand jury testimony: "At that time, steroids were a very important part of our regime. We had to be in shape. It was a service, not a disservice. I never saw it forced on anyone. It was entirely my choice."

** Steroid expert Dr. Gary Wadler was the last witness of the day and the trial. He mostly talked about what a legitimate doctor/patient relationship would consist of. He also went over potential side effects, noting that bodybuilding doses are much larger than therapeutic doses, and as such there were not really studies as to how much worse heavy use was on the body. McDevitt went back and forth with Wadler on cross, trying to impugn his credentials among other things, and then they called it a day.

Tomorrow: Wadler finishes testifying and both sides wrap up their cases.